Glimpses of the Past
by SailingTheOTP
Summary: In a future world, there are many unsolved mysteries that can only be solved by experience. In times not documented, a historian's best guess is the closest thing to the answer one is going to get. "So I see, you were born during 'that' time. I guess we owe our own futures to you." (Re-upload of an old story. Starting this account new)
1. Prologue: A Dusty Little Girl

Roy wandered up to the excavation site slowly, his dark thin eyes scouring the pits surrounding him as a few other archaeologists chiselled away at the volcanic stone. The tapping of the mallets on the chisels breaking away the rock was soothing to Roy, but only partially. It was the type of sound that could either be a comfort in one's ear and mind; or one that droned, tweaked and pretty much made his ears slowly bleed. As Roy walked past one of the sections marked off by green twine, which was rested at exactly at tripping level, (There had been more than one incident) he looked down into the dust filled pit. Covered in bits of dirt, debris and volcanic rock was basketball sized melted hunks of metal. These balls rested in the bases of the pits, looking no different than oddly coloured rocks. Roy thought they faintly looked like pieces of machinery, but he shrugged it off as a silly thought. It was probably just some balled up ores from an explosion or eruption. These ore balls were a major discovery, because their team weren't there to do an archaeological dig; they were there to do some standard scientific testing of the area.

He and his team were only here the day they discovered the balls for a few standard rock samples to study nitrates in the soil, the pH level and the density. It was simple enough but it turned into a fully-fledged excavation when the metal balls were found and the leading member of their scientific community had sternly stated that these metal spheres could be more than what they think they were and that they should do more diggings around the area to test if there were any more of the alloy boulders. Roy now carefully crossed a wooden board that was placed across a gap in the diggings that had been created when two pits had sides that fell away and the team decided the easiest way to pass the collapse was to place a plank of wood in between the gap with no structural support. The board bent dramatically and even groaned a little as Roy strode across it as a shortcut to reach his destination. When he placed his feet on the rock on the other sides of the pit he turned around and scowled deeply at the timber plank, his glare portraying the message he wanted to speak out-loud 'I'm not that fat.'

Quietly and sneakily, Roy walked up behind a middle height blonde woman who held a clipboard within her left arm and quickly, like a snake striking its prey, wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her slightly so her feet only skimmed the ground. She squealed in surprise at his sudden gesture and slapped his arms. He let out a gentle laugh and let her go out from his arms, firstly putting her feet back on the dusty ground surrounding them and then letting go of her waist with some hesitation. The blonde scowled at his childishness before she held out a piece of cloth for him to look at. "We discovered this within one of the pits. We think its leather and judging by the shape we guessed it was worn as clothing."

"Leather? Hmm..." Roy pondered quietly. "Someone must have been caught in the eruption that formed all this organic rock."

The dusty woman blinked at him once, her left eye comically twitching slightly. She was holding back a glare. _How cute_. "Of course."

Roy winked at her subtly and leant in close to whisper in her ear, his breath ghosting on her earlobes. "Well Riza, it's been a while since our last encounter and this work is very stressful. Maybe we could go to my house together and-"

"HOLY SHIT!" a voice echoed across the diggings and into the ears of Roy and Riza. Roy immediately split away from a blushing Riza, quickly apologising to her for having to stop their conversation, before he turned away from her and ran towards excavation pit 12, almost falling down one of the pits. Riza sighed at the hopeless man and decided to follow after him. When Roy peered down, he saw what the profanities were directed towards. The worker had discovered the cavity of seemingly a human body, the edges crumbled slightly and the hollowed out area surrounded by rock. The air that rushed into the hole was the first fresh air this body cavity had felt in most likely 1000 years old judging by the carbon dating.

"Get the French plaster!" Roy yelled over his shoulder to one of the workers who was standing in awe. The man jumped, threw his cigarette to the ground and ran to the bag of white powder they had brought. It was a necessary part of excavations due to the shear uncertainty of a dig. Roy was almost bursting from joy. This find was like a dream come true for him. Finally, he would get a name for himself. Finally, he wouldn't have to bow to his superiors, finally he-

A sharp crack and a flash of light, like electricity, lit up the hollow cavity with a startling red colour and a sound similar to iron scraping on a chalkboard droned from it. Roy was frozen, but then turned around slowly, eyes widened in shock at what had just happened within the hollow they had found discovered. A human leg was forming from the cavity, twitching as the new muscles and tissue was added to it. You could see the bones slowly grow out and form seemingly from nowhere and the muscle come up to form over the bones over the leg, before tissue and skin covered them over. Roy let a sound out of his mouth that was incredibly high pitched, not quite a scream, not quite a cuss word; a mix of the two. Riza was next to him at the time of the 'magical leg' formation and was the first to react to the sight before them. She grabbed the largest hammer near them, which was a rubber topped mallet capable of breaking a leg which was used for driving chisels into sedimentary rocks and with one foul swing of her arms, slammed it on the top of the cavity where it was quite obvious a human body was forming as lightning and the sound coming from within had stopped.

A great cracking sound split the air as the volcanic rock split into many tiny pieces all over the ground, her hands, and many other places around them. She reached up and pulled the remaining shards of stone away from the top of the hollow. The naked torso of a girl was underneath the stone and dirt, causing the men looked away instantaneously, embarrassed at the sight of a female's body. Riza didn't care for things like modesty at this time. As Riza pulled the stones from the face of the clearly teenage girl, she realised how much worse the situation was getting for the girl in the ground. The girl wasn't breathing nor was she moving. Riza sighed, her shoulders slumping forward and her head falling forward. She wasn't quick enough to save this girl...

The teenage girl's dark brown eyes shot open suddenly and she took a great gasp of air into her lungs as she sat up, debris and dust falling from her body. Her hands were clawing forward at the dirt, trying to get out of the stones encasing her remaining leg and her left arm. She was coughing, spluttering and panicking, tears sliding down her face and dripping onto the dirt before her. Riza pushed her back firmly and gently chiselled her trapped arm from the volcanic rock. After doing so, Riza pulled both her arms forward and upward, forcing the girl to look into Riza's eyes. She took a deep raspy breath, trying to calm down a little whilst still getting use to the sensations of breathing once again.

Dust from the rocks from the dig had settled over her face forming a brown coating on her face, broken only by her tears causing trails cutting through the fine layer of dust forming their own little rivers. Riza frowned at this girl's face which displayed her clear distress and pulled her close to her, embracing her softly and trying to have her calm down so she was easier to deal with. The girl stiffened underneath her but eventually relaxed, sagging into her in a way that almost displayed defeat. Riza felt a tap on her shoulders from above the diggings and turned to look up at the source. Roy was holding out a woollen blanket for Riza to give to the girl to cover her so she could keep some modesty. Riza grasped it firmly in her left hand and wrapped it around the girl in front of her. It was a dark brown colour, a similar colour to the girl's eyes. A flicker of red on the girl's arm caught Riza's eyes causing her to turn and see a sharp red tattoo streaking up her left forearm as it re-drew itself onto her appendage.

Riza looked sympathetically at the girl in front of her. Her eyes were gently focused on the poor child in front of her who was clearly struggling to gauge her surroundings. "Are you okay?"

"Was?" She replied, a confused look on her face when Riza spoke to her.

"You must speak another language. Obviously." Riza mumbled to herself, looking a little lost. How was she supposed to communicate with this girl if there was a major language barrier in between them?

"Ich heiβe Lan Fan. Wir heiβt Du." She spoke towards Riza, a small but sceptical smile on her face.

"I can't understand you."

The girl was frustrated, she let out a long slow breath as she glared at the ground in muted annoyance. She pointed at herself. "Ich bin Lan Fan."

Riza raised an eyebrow in confusion at the teenager in front of her.

She pointed again. "Lan Fan. Lan. Fan."

Riza understood now; she was trying to tell Riza the girl's name. She pointed at herself. "Riza."

Lan Fan smiled at Riza, looking relieved. Riza was a little relieved that the girl managed get her point across.

"C'mon." Riza put both hands on the edge of the pit and hoisted herself out of it as Lan Fan sat in the bottom of the pit holding the blanket close to her covered in dirt. She turned and looked at the girl, offering her a hand for Lan Fan to take to help her out of the hole. Lan Fan gingerly took her hand and was pulled out of the hole by Riza, whilst still holding the blanket tightly to her body.

"Roy, I'm taking her home with me." Riza informed the black haired man in front of her, her arm holding Lan Fan close to her to her body, almost in a protective way whilst she stood there awkwardly. Some people might have even have believed that the girl was one of her own.

"Okay." Roy frowned.

Riza took Lan Fan's hand and led the dust-covered girl through the excavation sights, going around unsafer areas and areas with sharp stones or tools on the ground. Lan Fan held the blanket around her tightly as she stared at the ground. She coughed out some dust that was inside her throat and mouth but kept moving around the holes in the ground. Her eyes were wide and taking everything in with childish curiosity, the futuristic buildings surrounding them even in the rural areas also seemed to make Lan Fan's eyes have a slight twinkle to them. Riza finally managed to make it to her silver coloured car that rested on a gravel covered area that the team had temporarily built to park cars on top of. She stopped and opened the front passenger door of her car and offered for Lan Fan to get in, gently pushing her on the back to help her get over her apparent nervousness. Lan Fan hesitated, but eventually clambered into the vehicle.

"Ling. Es ist dein Hause..." She whispered in slight astonishment at the vehicle she was seated in.

Riza leaned over and put the seatbelt on the girl for her as she obviously didn't know how to do it herself. She smiled at the dust-covered female and turned before then clambered into the other side of the car. "Let's get you home."

Riza's bare feet padded softly on her plush carpet on her way to the guest bedroom. She opened the door slowly and looked inside of the room to make sure the occupant was still inside and hadn't made a mad dash out the window. Lan Fan sat on the bed, knees to chest with her arms wrapped around them as she stared at the sunset like it had hypnotised her. Riza gently tapped Lan Fan's shoulder and smiled when Lan Fan turned to look at her into watching it. Lan Fan was in a pair of Riza's old pyjamas which clearly didn't fit the short girl; the pants were too long and the waist was too wide but Lan Fan made them fit by rolling up the waist to make it thinner. She had a loose white T-shirt on with a humming bird printed on the front of it and her ebony hair was damp from her recent shower. From where Riza was standing at the door he could see the crimson tattoo that covered her left arm from her posterior to her elbow.

"Dinner's ready." Riza said even though it was pointless and to correct her mistake, she mimicked eating out of a bowl. Lan Fan nodded in mutual understanding and stood up, following Riza out of the room, down the small hallway, and into the kitchen where Riza had set two porcelain bowls down filled with a hot soup Riza had cooked. The spices wafted up Riza's nose and made her stomach grumble almost angrily at her. Looking at Lan Fan's feet, the older blond noticed her bare feet knowing that the cold tiles would be almost painful.

Dinner was eaten in silence. Hawkeye looked at Lan Fan's back as she went back to her room, mumbling something about being moody? She was so thin and small and the clothes she wore barely fit. Because she had regenerated seemingly from nothing within a hollow cavity formed from her own body in the base of a once volcano startled Riza and deeply worried her. Just what sorts of things had the poor girl seen in her lifetime? Dunking her hands in the hot soapy water, Riza began to scrub at the dishes within the sink. Black Hayate nosed her leg for the leftovers from dinner and Riza smiled as she placed down Lan Fan's bowl to her shiba inu. Lan Fan had only ate half of the food she was given but Riza didn't mind though; considering the situation she wouldn't have been that hungry either. She couldn't say the same for Roy however. He was a bottomless pit for food to go into and never return from again. His stomach was like a portal to another dimension.

Looking at her feet and smiled at Black Hayate who was nudging his nose into her leg again. "What is it boy? Need to go outside?"

Hayate wagged his tail and ran towards the door.

Riza giggled softly at her little mutt and opened the glass sliding door to let Hayate out into the small yard she owned to do his business in the cold, dark night. Her house was small when compared to what other people owned, but it was all that she really needed to sustain herself. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and a laundry. She closed the door and waitied for the insistent whining and scratching Hayate would let off when he wanted to be let back in after he had done his business. It was cold outside in early summer and Riza could feel the chill when she opened the door prickle her flesh. After two minutes she had to remove herself from her dishes and open the door as a little black shape darted inside and leapt onto his blue, worn, hair-covered dog bed in her living room, right next to her plush chair. Black Hayate curled up, closing his eyes.

Riza smiled at her little ball of fuzz before she steeled her face and wandered into the guest room to check on Lan Fan as the light was still on. Curled up on the spare bed in a foetal position, Lan Fan dreamed lazily as she held herself close to her body in a protective sort of manner. Soft snores came from the girl as she rested properly in the abyss of sleep, caressed by the blankets beneath her. Her shirt had ridden up her body a bit, her flat, creamy skin displayed in the gap formed between her shirt and her pants; her chest rose and fell softly and Riza pulled the blanket sitting by the young girl's feet up to her shoulders.

Riza closed the guest bedroom door gently as to not to disturb her visitor and walked over to the landline phone as quietly as she could. She needed help on this issue. She dialled a familiar number and waited for her friend to pick up on the other side. Riza had confidence she would answer, as it wasn't that late in the evening.

"Hello?" A soprano voice questioned her after the ringing was suddenly cut off.

"Hello Sheska. It's Riza. I need a hand." She replied.

"Oh Riza, hey; sure, what is it you need help with?"

"You're going to have a hard time believing this but there is a girl staying in my house that we found in our excavations and so I decided to take her home with me."

"Wait; hold up a second. So you found her at the site just wandering around? You can be charged for kidnapping, Riza!"

"Not on the site, _in_ the site."

The line was silent for a moment as Sheska processed the statement. Riza wasn't one to joke, so this was definitely real. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know. We found a cavity of a human body so we went to fill it with plaster to get a look at the body but she then just… _formed_ out of it. Her body literally regenerated and _grew_ right before our eyes. She speaks another language so we need your help Sheska, you can speak her language."

"Okay Riza... I'll be over tomorrow so don't have her run away."

The line went dead, a monotone beep playing through the ear piece as Riza sighed gratefully and replaced the phone onto its charging stand; before she then wandered into the living room.

"Maybe I'll finish my book." Riza mused quietly as she practically fell into the chair, tired of the hard day's work and general shock of the day finally taking a toll on her. She picked up a her old copy of A Tale Of Two Cities from her stand next to her bed and pulled out the bookmark after opening to the pages that the bookmark was wedged in-between. Relaxing into the chair, she began reading, practically falling into the book, engrossed in the story as it transported her into a new world.

The old clock she inherited from her grandfather chimed 10 times, signalling the time before the whole house went dark. Riza lifted her head and sighed at her lights. I guess they needed to do repairs. Hawkeye stood and went to go get the spare torch from the kitchen when she froze at the sounds of feet padding through the house, the noise slightly echoing off her plain cream painted walls. Riza put the book down and loaded her little revolver she had retrieved from a draw in her desk. She was almost certain that it was just Lan Fan, but you can never be sure within the middle of the night. She wandered out of the living room and walked into the hallway briskly, the dark looming in front of her giving an eerie feeling as her flesh rose in goose bumps. She flicked on the lights but, to no avail, zero volts of power went through the globe to light it.

A movement in the dark caught Riza's attention and she lifted her gun to the shape in front of her. Lan Fan wandered out of Riza's room a few moments later, hugging the pillow close to her chest looking lost and distressed.

"Riza!" She cried, not incredibly loud but it was still too loud for this time of night. Riza would have scolded her if she could communicate with her, but she couldn't, so she just had to give a stern look.

"You should be asleep." She sounded like the poor girl's mother, although Riza doubted she had parents due to the nature of her being.

The girl pointed at the lights, her arm shaking slightly.

"It's a power cut." She explained, although she wasn't sure why. Lan Fan couldn't understand her anyway.

Lan Fan's bottom lip trembled and she almost stumbled over to Riza, the dark making it hard to see little things like a desk's edge which Lan Fan collided her hip into on her way to the other female. Lan Fan hugged Riza tightly and let a little sob out her mouth as Riza was utterly bewildered. She had a little resolve but brought her hands around in a tight hug anyway. The girl kept mumbling to herself. "Ling... Ed... Winry...Das Mannequin zombies."

Mannequin Zombies

Riza stared at Lan Fan as she continued to shake. She was someone from the period of the white creatures. But, they were just myths! Enigmas! Movies used them for horror to scare viewers with their pale, decaying bodies and their flesh eating habits. They existed over 1000 years ago when they suddenly disappeared so scientists weren't even sure if the creatures even existed. If Lan Fan saw these things, lived with these things, fought these things, then surely she was a valuable source of information to scientists and the government. Riza kept stroking Lan Fan's silky black hair that was still moist from her shower until she stopped trembling. Riza felt a sudden wave to protect the girl from the prying questions and sharp tools of her future as the scientists and the government would try and pry intel from her mind and mouth. After a while, when the power came back on, Lan Fan went settled into her room again and went back to sleep quickly. Riza was left with her thoughts that would plague her dreams with endless questions about a little girl.

She soon realised that if Lan Fan was not just linked to the Mannequin Zombies, but she might even be deeply engrained into the mysteries surrounding them. She maybe even knew why they disappeared suddenly from the earth. Riza could only hope that they found something, anything that would help them unravel the mystery tomorrow when Sheska came over to decipher her mixed words. Riza didn't find sleep easily that night, and when it did come, it was plagued by an immortal teenager with a red tattoo snaking around her arm, ending in a flame tattoo.


	2. The Basics of Survival

Riza awoke to the sounds of rumbling cars just outside her bedroom window; the sun had just risen, the beams peeking over the rooves of the suburban area. A little dazed from the light and noise, Riza lifted herself from her warm cocoon in her bed and stumbled over to the window in a half-awake, half-asleep fashion to peer out of the glass to locate the source of all the noise. Multiple vans and cars with painted on text were gathered out the front of her house and more stretched down the street, struggling to get close to her house. Almost dismissing the vehicles as a local party one of the new residents held, Riza went to close her curtains and crawl back into bed before she noticed the formal looking men and women unloading themselves from said vehicles littered along the street. The fog had lifted from her mind enough and her muscles had received enough blood to function for her to realise and remember the events of the previous day. Riza promptly closed the curtains to block all visual information and just as quickly stomped out of her room to her guest bedroom with a heavy grimace on her face.

Lan Fan sat in a corner of the room, her knees resting to her chest as she idly traced patterns in the thick grey carpet with her tattooed arm, clearly having been awake for only an hour or two. At the movements of Riza in the doorway, she lifted her head and smiled sweetly at the woman occupying the wooden frame. Ignoring Lan Fan for the moment, Riza promptly wandered to her window and drew the curtains shut, covering the room in a dark shadow. This action left Lan Fan incredibly confused at the woman who had just as quickly left the room as she had entered it. After a small internal battle, curiosity got the best of her and she decided to follow Riza around the house as she kept grimacing at the outside view before closing the curtains of every room in the house and turned on few of the lights. It was if she was trying to hide. After all was said and done, Riza wandered into the kitchen and flounced down onto one of the hardwood chairs, sighing audibly and trying to relax a bit. Lan Fan stood off to the side in the shadows, scratching her tattooed arm almost like the tattoo burned her with stinging nettles and looking to the side awkwardly, unable to look Riza in the eyes.

Sighing gently to herself, Riza Hawkeye stood up from her undignified sprawl across the chair and pulled out her cell phone from her pyjama pockets and dialling Sheska's number once more, opting to find out where Sheska was rather than put any effort into Lan Fan for now. A blaring ringing sound met her ears after the phone had successfully connected to the radio tower and Riza leaned back against one of the kitchen counters as she waited for Sheska to pick up; she didn't wait long.

"Hello… Riza?"

"Hey Sheska, how long until you get here because press and news crews are starting to arrive and I'm worried you might not be able to get inside my own home. They sure found out about it fast."

"I'm walking down your street now. The whole street is filled with cars and people Riza, everyone knows about this girl. I had to park two streets over. The media were all over her last night and the story appeared on every major news network! Roy tried to downplay it but he failed pretty miserably ah-, hold on I'm almost at your house now."

"Ah… I guess that was to be expected, he is pretty useless. Sheska, enter the side gate and head around the back. You'll have to jump over the fence so be sure to do so carefully. I'll wait for you by the back door. It's locked and the curtains are closed but I'll be there."

"Roger that Riza, chao."

"Bye, bye Sheska."

The call went dead and Riza smiled gently at her phone before she placed it on the table behind her next to where she had placed her keys the night before, looking up at the ceiling. Lan Fan cocked her head to the side and blinked once in confusion at Riza, whom seemed to be lost within her own thoughts. A sharp cough ripped up Lan Fan's throat and a little more of the excavation site's dust came out her mouth with it; she had been coughing up the leftover dust from her lungs for the past night and didn't get much sleep because of it. Riza snapped her head around to look at Lan Fan, who merely smiled gently with an expression almost in pain as her throat burned with metaphorical fire, and went back just leaning against the wall within the shadows.

An undignified scream came from outside followed by a heavy thump as most presumably a human fell from, presumably, the fence. Riza sighed amusedly, dropped a coat on Lan Fan's head to cover her face and hair, and went briskly to the back door before she opened the curtains and unlocking the glass sliding doors. Sheska lay on the ground, her glasses crooked and her hair ruffled, her bag miraculously still together with nothing spilled out. Riza let a small sigh out her lips and lowered her shoulders and head. She still gestured for the klutz to come inside her house anyway; Sheska quickly responded, bounding quickly into Riza's little abode. Riza glared out at her yard, noticing the glint of a camera lens hidden in one of her bushes before she shut the door and drew the curtains to block anyone from the outside seeing inside.

-.-

Sheska held her bag closer to her body as she looked at Lan Fan and Riza standing in the kitchen. Both of the ladies when in pyjamas due to the earlier hours of the morning that Sheska had arrived in. "Come here Sheska" Riza said, pulling out a chair for the brunette to relax into and set up. The other woman took it hesitatingly as Riza put a glass of water in front of her.

"I'll be right back Sheska, come with me, Lan Fan." Riza said before she tugged Lan Fan's tattooed arm tentatively and dragged her into the corridor. Sheska unloaded things from within her bag onto the table whilst humming softly to herself. Among the contents was a sketchpad with pencils for any visual information, a notebook, several pens and a recorder with a 10 gigabyte micro SD memory card inserted into it. She relaxed a little more into the chair and waited for the two to come back.

-.-

Lan Fan had never been good at communicating, so being around this foreign and alien language wasn't as jarring as it should have been to someone of a clearly older time. Currently, she had been placed into fresh clothes and underwear rather forcibly by Riza and was now sitting on a plush chair as Riza brushed and braided her hair back from her face. She had been put into black shorts that had the ends touching just above her knees, another oversized shirt on, this time it was blue and had a silver heart on it near the collar. On top of her shirt was a dark blue unzipped cardigan that covered her hands and half of her shorts. Riza smiled at Lan Fan and let go of her hair, which was now tied back in a braid with her fringe and some strands of hair left out near her temples that fell to her collarbone.

With her tattooed arm, she reached back gently and pulled the hair forward, looking at the twisted locks within the mirror. A sudden flash, a vivid memory, clouded her vision for a bit as she stared at the mirror. _Golden hair, eyes like the sun, a grey tattoo streaking down his right arm before the memory was filled with molten red so much red, eyes filled with joy, then pain, so much pain, so much red,_ _ **but you and that red are one in the same**_ _, the same, the same, you lived, where are they now, where-._ Lan Fan lowered her eyes and let go of her hair, opting to place her hands in her lap so she could control their movements. They were trembling as she squeezed them in-between her thighs to hide them from further view.

Riza held the door open for Lan Fan, the brush she had used now sitting on a small table in her room and her own hair tied back. Lan Fan blinked once at Riza before quickly scuttled over to the door and heading straight into the kitchen. There were pieces of paper, writing tools and a small strange metal box on the table in front of the brunette. Sheska smiled at Riza and gestured for Lan Fan to sit down on the chair opposite her as she and Riza exchanged words between each other. Lan Fan sat down and blinked a few times as Sheska grabbed one of her clear pens and pressed a button on the silver box. Lan Fan stared awkwardly as the screen started counting up.

"Hello, your name is Lan Fan, right?" Sheska stated, a small lightness to her tone.

Lan Fan's eyes widened. She had heard the woman correctly, right?

"I spent a large part of my schooling learning all types documents and also did a management course for foreign documents and a part of that was the need to learn multiple languages. I don't know why I chose a dead language, but I guess it worked out alright."

"You can understand me?" Lan Fan questioned loudly, her hands spreading out on the table as her eyes widened in shock.

"Yeah, most of it anyway as we don't have every word ever used. We need your help though. Riza said that you formed out of the ground you were dug from and that was a… odd occurrence. Can-"

Riza quickly mumbled something to Sheska in her ear, who in turn quickly turned to Lan Fan.

"-and apparently you know something about 'Mannequin Zombies' from all the horror movies. We need the information for historical and scientific progression."

"Scientific progression! That's the reason those devils were there!" Lan Fan yelled back angered. She was not going to be a part of this science again. She swore that to herself and to _them._

Sheska was unsure how to react; this girl was clearly terrified of the past she had lived in, but she needed to find out why someone as calm looking as Lan Fan was so scared. "So what happened? Please tell us. We need this to be able to understand the mysteries of the Mannequin Zombies. If not to improve science than to stop some scientists repeating mistakes."

Lan Fan was silent for a while as her mind roared with multiple thoughts and arguments. One of these little voices won. She finally answered quietly; "Alright…"

Sheska leaned forward and put her pen to the paper as Lan Fan sat for a moment, unsure of where to start. Her eyes had clouded over and multiple emotions crossed her face as she tried to grasp for a suitable place to start. At the same time Riza sat down in one of the remaining chairs and observed the girl in front of her to make sure she wouldn't try to bolt or break down. Finally, Lan Fan's expression hardened and she looked up.

"I suppose I should start with what was presumed to be the basics of staying alive. Sleep during the day, have plenty of food and water, and travel in groups.

A gentle wind rustled through the grass as the sun dipped below the far away mountain range's peaks, covering anything below them in a heavy shadow. Animals scampered into their burrows and the birds began to settle within the trees. A river filled with salmon flowed nearby, glittering in the last light of the day. Several tufts of dandelion fluff dislodged from their stalks and went off, sailing in the wind currents to find root away from it's original home. The leaves of the trees rustled and blocked out some of the sun, casting long shadows onto the ground.

Deep brown eyes fluttered open, the darkness rousing them from their light sleep. Lan Fan quickly sat up and stretched, before she reached over to the knot she had tied with the rope to keep her within the tree and quickly untied it. She unravelled the rope from around the tree and around her and quickly coiled it to store in her small bag. She was losing light and her oil supply for her lamp was running low. She scowled at the next stream of wind, the cold air pinching her arms as she through the branches to where she had hung her dark drown trench coat, the leather providing an old comfort to the lone traveller much like a hug. Lan Fan blinked and yawned, stretching her arms wide. She reached up and hooked the lantern off of the tree branch it rested on, lighting the oil inside and glanced at the sun to determine her location. She follows the sun, no real goal in mind.

Looking down at the ground, Lan Fan crouched on the branch like an oversized vulture before she threw herself off the branch to the ground below. Upon landing, her ankles ached and her boots sunk into the ground partially. Lan Fan brought her fingerless-gloved covered hands to her face and breathed into them to try and heat her hands up a little more in the late-night chills, the heat from the lantern heating her left cheek as she held her right hand close. She gripped the lantern between her teeth and shifted her tight singlet on her body up, pulling the zipper on the right higher up so it stayed up before she pulled her looser pants up, tightening the white belt around her so it held up better on her body. She needed to adjust her clothes from her sleep where they had risen and adjusted from her slight movements in the trees.

Lan Fan steeled her resolve, slung the bag which contained her rope, spare oil and other necessities over her body, and began walking in the direction that the sun had set in. The stars shone brightly above her and she began to stare at the beauty of the lights, a soft smile coming to her face as she kept wandering through the overgrown grass and looming trees. She often wondered what it was like to be a star, no need to worry about surviving. She had no goal and no future to look forward to as she followed the sun. She had been doing this for nearly as long as she remembered, since _that_ night. She had been part of a group once, but they were all dead. The Mannequins had killed them. No, those monsters hadn't killed them, the one who killed them was-

A raspy groan echoed through the air from behind her, to close to be safe. Lan Fan whirled around and scanned the trees to find the source and eliminate it. The stars above provided little light as she looked through the shadows to find the pale creature. A lone Mannequin was shambling towards her, its raspy groan and it's dry, cracked, purplish tongue licking its flaking lips sent chills down Lan Fan's spine. She silently opened the lantern's glass panel used to light it and refill oil as it came closer. It was getting closer so much that she could see the dried blood on its chin. Something changed in the mood and the zombie lunged towards her, a devilish scream erupting from its lips as its mouth unhinged to take a bite out of her body. With one fluid motion, Lan Fan flung the lamp at the monster, the oil spraying onto the zombie as it burned and scorched the flesh of the undead from its bones.

Lan Fan sighed and picked up her lamp, scolding herself internally for wasting oil on this beast when she was in suck limited supply. She closed the tiny door on the lamp and began to follow the sun once more, or at least, the opposite of the moon. The terrain was changing from a flat landscape to a steeper one, leaving the dying creature behind. Their corpses were incredibly flammable. There was a shout from a male, then a flash of light shone in her direction from near the top of one of the hills. A man with blonde hair and a goatee was pointing a large flashlight at her, which was so powerful she had to shield her eyes with her arm. She scowled at the thought of this light attracting more zombies, as they were attracted to any changes of stimuli in their environment, whether it be light, heat or sound.

"What is it?" she called, preparing herself to run from this man. There were a lot of looters at the beginning of this apocalypse and Lan Fan had assumed them all dead, maybe a few survived? Looters went around and stole all of your equipment to pawn off to other travellers; not that it really mattered to Lan Fan.

"What are you doing out here? Are you alone?" He replied back, not answering her question but lowering the light so she could at least look at his face properly when he talked to her. She really didn't want to reply but she knew she had to.

"Yes, I'm alone. What difference does it make to you?"

"A kid shouldn't be out on their own, regardless of skill or history. They're not old enough."

"Well I am alone, so what are you going to do about it?"

"Join in with our group."

"No."

Jean blinked and his mouth fell open comically and the flashlight fell from his hand.

"I haven't been with a group for four years and even then I didn't really belong with them. They died from their bickering splitting them, before Mannequins decided to chew on their bones." Lan Fan clarified.

"I see, well you're joining us anyway. Like it or not, it's safer for everyone"

This time, Lan Fan's mouth opened comically but before she could disagree and tell the lie that she was heading somewhere important like she had for other groups, he grabbed her by her trench coat's collar and dragged her back to his camp where the other members of his party were. She went limp, giving up all pretences of fighting this man. She sighed, hoping she could maybe escape the group soon and return to what she was doing, even though what she was doing herself had no purpose. Maybe she would find comfort in the group that decided to take her on without her consent. She sighed again and looked at her feet as she was being dragged through the thick grasses.

 _I hope it doesn't turn out like them._


End file.
